Advisers worry about ‘grumpy McCain’

When Politico’s Ryan Grim approached Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after the evening of the Senate bailout vote, the reporter didn’t even get his question out.

“Excuse me, you’re bothering me,” McCain said.

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It was a surprising rebuke from a politician who once was famous for palling around with reporters, and who was so media-friendly that he was sometimes known as “the senator from ‘Meet the Press.’”

But what friends call “grumpy McCain” is showing up regularly on the campaign trail, and several top advisers worry that it’s hurting his campaign by making him appear peevish and hunkered down when the country is looking for a larger and more optimistic brand of leadership.

After his first debate with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), both spectators in the hall and commentators on TV noted that McCain had deliberately avoided looking at his rival.

A close McCain friend said the reason is clear: McCain is miserable about having to run a campaign that’s antithetical to his persona.

“He is basically having to be somebody that he isn’t,” said the friend, who remains strongly supportive. “He is just not a guy that goes on the attack in public. For him to be on the attack constantly, attacking Obama’s character … McCain is uncomfortable with that, and it’s made him grumpy.”

Part of his ill temper apparently flows from the hazing being delivered his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. When a Philadelphia graduate student in line for cheesesteaks asked Palin a question about Pakistan, McCain later called it “gotcha journalism.”

The examples are adding up. When McCain sat down with Time magazine, a reporter asked him to define honor, and he snarled, “Read it in my books.” The magazine headlined its prickly McCain interview, “McCain’s prickly Time interview.”

When McCain sat down with The Des Moines Register's editorial board for another interview, he got into a testy exchange with an editor who raised conservative criticism of his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"If there's a Georgetown cocktail party person who, quote, calls himself a conservative and doesn't like her, good luck. Good luck. Fine," McCain replied.

When one of the Iowa journalists suggested that the ad about lipstick on a pig was not worthy of his campaign, McCain snapped: “That certainly is your opinion. But [that doesn’t change] my positions and my honorable service to this country. So I respect your opinion. I strongly disagree with your assertion.”

A senior McCain campaign official said the idea that McCain is crabby is "silly" and noted, "McCain opened the first debate with a joke!"

The apparent shift in mood is in part a reflection of his changed circumstances. In the past, McCain had been known for occasionally freezing out or chiding reporters who annoyed him, but these occasional episodes just seemed to be part of his maverick package.

Now some advisers fear that he’s becoming known for being too cranky — acting out David Letterman’s jokes about an old man shouting, “Get off my lawn.” In particular, some advisers say his harshly negative attacks on Obama do not fit the worrisome circumstances facing the country.

“People do not want that — they’re not going to put up with it,” a campaign official said. “They will in advertising, but not from the man himself."

One longtime adviser said McCain has a choice in tonight’s debate, which has a town hall format that will make it hard to ignore Obama.

“He either has to go out and be Ronald Reagan and let the paid advertising just burn the house down on Obama, or he can go out and be Bob Dole — ‘Where is the outrage?'” the adviser said. If he doesn’t turn to the Reagan approach in terms of his personal conduct and demeanor, he’ll lose.

The adviser was referring to the 1996 GOP nominee, whose attacks on Bill Clinton’s character that year never took hold, causing him to bray indignantly, “Where’s the outrage?”

“McCain can’t appear to be desperate,” the adviser continued. “He’s got to be upbeat and enthusiastic, and he’s really got to channel Reagan. If he goes into this debate and beats the [heck] out of Obama, Obama’s numbers are going to come up.”

To make that switch, McCain will have to overcome an aversion to Obama that he no longer bothers to gloss over. When Obama crossed over to the Republican side of the Senate floor the night of the bailout vote and offered his hand to his rival, “McCain shook it, but with a ‘go away’ look that no one could miss," David Nather reported on CQPolitics.com.

“He tried his best not to even look at Obama,” Nather wrote. “Finally, with a tight smile, McCain managed a greeting: ‘Good to see you.’ Obama got the message ... and quickly beat a retreat back to the Democratic side.”